One Thousand Words
by westpoints
Summary: She has red hair. Blue eyes. Doctor's hands. But we all know pictures are worth...100 Addisoncentric drabbles. COMPLETE 4.3.07
1. Red

I've been working in the past holiday break over...

My response(s) to the Fanfic100 challenge over at LJ. They're completely Addisoncentric, except maybe two. It was a bit grueling.

Hmm...whatelse...oh yes. Each one is supposed to contain a reference to literature (my addison-literature arc is suffering because of this), or classic movies, or literary devices (such as idioms.) Yes, there will be some overlap. There will be a couple ones that don't have any reference at all, but...sometimes, they just won't work.

_Disclaimer: I'm only doing one of these: GREY'S ANATOMY IS NOT MINE._

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**Red**

It's hard to ignore the fact that she's a redhead. It's just..._there_, like the metaphorical elephant. (Or is it giraffe? Well, _a_ large animal; she doesn't bother learning idioms.)

They say that red is the rarest type of natural hair color, but she's 13 and selfish, and she can't appreciate the uniqueness of being a redhead like an adult. She's just read _Anne of Green Gables_ and she's holding a bottle of hair dye; things never turn out like they do in the books, anyway.

Her hair comes out an ugly tan-rust color and, like Anne, she almost dies.

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Reference: _Anne of Green Gables_. By Lucy Montgomery. Duh. Except that Anne dyes her hair purple or something. 

Reviews would be pretty cool.


	2. Insides

Oh yay a review! I know there aren't many drabble fans out there, but c'mon...It's Addison!

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Insides

The life of a woman and her child are in her hands right now, as she's carefully cutting through the uterine wall, in a standard Caesarian section operation. She's learned not to think of it like that by now, but sometimes these things creep up on her, and she wants to scream.

The baby is there, alive but so small, so tiny, much like her mother, and Addison hates this part, this part after getting the baby and making sure it's safe.

She stitches the mother back up, and watches absentmindedly as the happy (deliriously tired) woman receives her child.

It's not lost upon her that for most of history, C-sections are performed by the lonely medicine women.

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Reference: Lonely medicine woman throwback to _Scarlett_, the (slightly disappointing) "sequel" to _Gone With the Wind_, by Alexandra Ripley. 

I don't know where this one is set. Probably in Seattle, after Christmas, before Prom. Dunno.

Please review!


	3. Snow

Oo, more reviews! This is actually doing better than I thought. Hmm. **Cheska**, I actually don't know my lit very well at all. I take most of it from books I read in school and then some of the ones later on use idioms (because it's such a GA monologue thing to do). But thanks!

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**Snow**

She's always grown up around snow, and it comes as a shock, the first time that she doesn't have a white Christmas; Dorthy Gale would hold nothing to her bewildered state, which gives way only to anger.

"Addi, it's not that bad," Derek admonishes, his arms wrapping around her waist as she glares at the sandy, snowless Florida beaches.

"Derek..." she whines.

"Addi..." he smirks.

And she just knows that he's going to be mean about it, so she shoves him, and he kisses her, and she's lost in a snowstorm of her own, if snow could fall in such high temperatures.

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Reference: Dorthy Gale is from _The Wizard of Oz_. L. Frank Baum, dude. It's pretty cool. We'll see lots of characters from Oz in this 100.

Review!


	4. Diamond

WHOA, tons of reviews. Crazy. You guys are awesome. I love you all.

Note before I forget: literarycritic is doing this challenge, also Addisoncentric, over on the actual LJ community. It's pretty awesome. Can't link it in here, but google it up and see. Fanfic100-- literarycritic

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**Diamond**

It's diamond, because even Derek isn't that unconventional.

She looks hard at it, hoping, maybe, to see a flaw in it, a chip. Something to reflect what happened to its symbolism, something to show the _taint _on her marriage.

She almost wants there to be a scarlet 'A' pinned to her chest as she walks around, just so then her guilt will be public, but, then again, Dimmesdale dies in that ending.

She doesn't want Mark to die, but she does wish that he'd care about the fact that the diamond winks so obviously _at_ _him_ whenever they're together.

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Reference: Scarlet A, Arthur Dimmesdale are from _The Scarlet Letter_, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Side note: Addek, I suppose, is something that has to be addressed in this sort of collection, but I stand by my Maddison-ness.

Loving the reviews. Keep it coming.

Happy New Year, guys!


	5. Club

Strange, quirky humor. You thought I could stay away. You thought wronggggggg! Thanks for all the reviews!

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Club

Mark points out a bumper sticker on a car in the midst of this giant traffic jam. It reads as a typical "I (heart) insert-object-here," except that it has a club instead of a heart, and the object is a baby seal. Upton Sinclair would have been proud.

Derek laughs, but Addison slaps his head because that's just cruel.

She's already mad anyway; they've eaten all the cookies and it's still four more hours with Derek and Mark in a car the day before Thanksgiving on an overcrowded highway and some idiot couple is having a wedding in the middle of the road.

She's going to make a bumper sticker that says "I (club) Married People."

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Reference: Letsee...Upton Sinclair wrote a book called _The Jungle_, which explored the meat-packing industry in the mid-1900's. It's disgusting, and you'll never eat a hamburger again after you read it. So don't read it. The highway marriage is a creation of my own twisted mind.

Review!


	6. Birth

Along with the quirky humor: Dialogue-only pieces. Can't stay away. I think I have at least one with every person on the show. Except Weber. Hmmm

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Birth

"Can you believe Marshall let us in on that surgery?"

"Jesus Christ. Three hour long labor. I would hate to be that mom."

"My mother says I was a difficult birth."

"I'm not surprised."

"I was the only boy. Four sisters, and the only boy."

"I know. You ruined the _Little Women_ theme they had."

"What about you, Montgomery?"

"My mom tells me that I was a very quiet baby, even in birth."

"Well, you make up for it now."

"I hate you, Shepherd."

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Reference: _Little Women_, Louisa May Alcott. I just found it fun that they had four girls.

More reviews! I love 'em.


	7. Where?

Whoa! Crazy. I love all these reviews! And yes, to all the people who say that they don't usually read drabbles: neither do I, but I thought that they would fit this project, so I'm glad you like these! I always try to make certain writing styles more enjoyable for everyone.

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**Where?**

It's not so much a need as a want, she tells herself.

It's not so much a want as a comfort.

It's not so much comfort as an indulgence.

It's not so much an indulgence as screwing your husband's best friend.

And as she diminishes the importance of this action in her mind, her mouth goes on without her and whispers, Scarlett-O'Hara-urgent into the phone, "I need you. Where are you, Mark?"

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Reference: _Gone With the Wind_, by Margaret Mitchell. We'll be seeing more of her.

As you've probably noticed, I'm updating daily. Hopefully, I'll get a HUGE following by 50. Let's see.

Review more, and I'll see you tomorrow!


	8. Blue

Thanks for the reviews! **AddisonMD**, if you go to the Fanfic100 community and click on the BIG DAMN TABLE, and scroll down to the Grey's Anatomy section, Literalcritical has the Addison section. I think she's written 14 (she has REAL stuff, not just drabbles)

Ah, the Maddison is coming back to me now...even if it's angsty.

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**Blue**

She has a pair of blue scrubs somewhere, navy blue like the rest of the attendings. She doesn't remember when she got the salmon pink ones, but she wears them anyway, her first few weeks in Seattle, feeling like Elphaba, singled out for her choice in scrub color.

But it's not until Stevens mutters the self-respecting surgeon line that she digs up the blue pair, which, oddly, smell like Mark, and she almost can't put them on.

She does anyway, because she's a self-respecting surgeon, and because she craves the interns' approval more than she'll ever admit.

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Reference: Our second Ozian character. Elphaba is the Wicked Witch of the West from _Wicked_, by Gergory Maguire. Remember? she's the green one. There was a musical, and Idina Menzel (Maureen from RENT) won a Tony for playing her. It's pretty awesome. Even if some of the lyrics are pretty stupid.


	9. Parents

Wow, this makes the third one in a row that mentions Mark. Hmmm...

**Astrantia**, thank you so much for your much too generous review. I actually have all 100 written, but by 50, I hope to gather a cultish sort of Drabble Fan following. And to everyone who professed their love for Wicked...I LOVE YOU GUYS.

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**Parents**

"It's probably obligatory."

"What is?"

"Childhood problems. Every single surgeon we know has these issues with their parents."

"That's actors."

"Yeah, well. What about you?"

"What about me, Sloan?"

"You never talk about your parents. I sense a daddy issue here."

"My parents are aging very well in a beach house in North Carolina. They were very nice people. And they did the best they could to prepare me for life."

"Sounds traumatic."

"There's your O. Henry surprise ending. Now go away."

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Reference: _Everybody _on GA has parent trauma. Figured I'd break the mold. (Although I have a theory that Addison was inherently disappointed with her parents, but wouldn't dream of admitting that). O. Henry is a short story writer from North Carolina (incidentally, my favorite American short story writer). He's known for his clever twist endings. "Gift of the Magi" anyone? It's a great story, I'm sure you can find it on the internets. 


	10. Breakfast

OC warning: Erin is a character of my own. I really like her. Aaaaand...Addek angst. Not really angst, but...not fluff. **Astrantia**, once again, you're being much too kind to my drabbles. And no, there are no pregnant Addisons, and very little crying Addisons (two things I hate reading), and (grudgingly) some Addisons that love Derek (Because it DID happen). **TerribleKate**, I love you too.

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Breakfast

The first day of school, her mother makes her pancakes. She's not particularly good at making pancakes, but Addison will eat anything if it has enough sugar in it. Even fried worms.

The first day of med school, Erin her roommate makes grilled cheese sandwiches. Erin's been with her since college, and she can make some fancy breakfasts, but grilled cheeses are good enough.

The first day of marriage, Derek surprises her with crepes and a ham, cheese, and tomato omelet. She's pleasantly amused, and knows that she can get used to this kind of food.

The first day of trailer life, and the scent of freshly caught fish sticks in her nose, and she knows that she can't eat breakfast now.

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Reference: Fried worms from _How To Eat Fried Worms_, the children's book by Thomas Rockwell.

Erin's going to be around a lot. I think, if I really inspect her, she's half a reflection of me and half a reflection of my friend Libby, and almost no reflection of Addison. She's Addison's foil.


	11. Sunrise

Another one with Derek, except it's in New York. Showing off their differences and stuff. Thanks for all the reviews! Yes, Erin is going to be around for a while; she's in at least four or five. Addison needs some friends that are actually friends, even if it's college.

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**Sunrise**

"I want you to see this, Addison, it's the most beautiful thing in the world." Addison mumbles something that's lost in the wind as Derek leans over their balcony. "What was that?"

"I said, there is nothing beautiful about a giant ball of gas appearing in the sky."

She settles next to him anyway, and watches as the sun creeps its way slowly into the sky, illuminating the dinginess of their city's dawnlife.

"It's amazing how we can still watch something so simple in such a modern world," he whispers, but she snorts, Smaug breathing fire in annoyance.

"There is nothing simple about the Earth's rotation around the sun."

They sit in quiet until the entire sky is in flames, and then Addison huffs.

"Well," she says. "That was refreshingly anti-climactic. I'm going back to sleep now."

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Reference: Smaug is the dragon from _The Hobbit_, by J.R.R. Tolkein.

Review!


	12. Black

I missed a day, didn't I? ACK, I am so very sorry. Please forgive me. I'll see if I have the time to upload another one today to make up for that.

Anyway. Childhood Addison! This one doesn't really make much sense, unless you inspect Addison's psyche the same twisted way I have...and then it's remotely coherent.

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**Black**

Every Halloween, she paints her nails black and goes out with her friends and neighbors as witches, trick-or-treating their way to several bags of fun-sized candy bars.

She secretly wants to be Mina Harker this year, but that would spoil everything, and not only because Daniel Asher is being Dracula.

So she dons her black cape and her black dress and paints her nails black, and, for one day out of the year, leaves behind Addison Montgomery to be like everyone else.

She wishes that she can be like everyone else forever.

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Reference: Come on, guys. _Dracula_? By Bram Stoker? I think there's one more with _Dracula_, but that won't come for a while. Daniel Asher is a one-time OC, who, presumably, was cute when he was younger.


	13. Middles

Ha, I had time to put up another one, even if it is at the end of the day. Anyway. **distorted realities**,I cannot BELIEVE you got to see Idina live! Twice! I'm Elphaba-green jealous. **Twilight and Silence**, you've hit my Addison dead-on. You're awesome.

Onto the drabble: ah, a dialogue only with Meredith. Should be interesting.

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Middles

"There's always a beginning, a middle, and an end, isn't there?"

"Dr. Grey, what are you talking about?"

"I mean, there's always a beginning, right, or else nothing would happen, and there's always an end, or else nothing _else_ would happen. So, there has to be a middle somewhere in there or else there's nothing to call a beginning or an end."

"You sound like a Tolkien novel. Maybe you should have this conversation with someone else. And when you're not holding a stool sample for the lab."

"But it's just...we have all this middle awkwardness between us, and I really want to like you, but we're in the middle of this whole awkward thing with Derek, so I just wanted to know when we can get through the middle and just not be awkward anymore."

"Dr. Grey, I...I'm in the middle of something."

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Reference: Huh. I made two Tolkien references in 15 prompts. Hmmm...well, there's that one. We all know how looooong his books can be, fantastic, though they are.

Review, and I swear I'll get next week's out on time.


	14. Broken

Ugh, I do wish I could update more, but I'm trying to make this whole thing last over a month, so...not my favorite, but we're getting to them! **distorted realities**, I just youtubed Kerry Ellis (because I'm a dork...and I've only been finding the American versions...) and OH. MY. GOD. She basically owns in "defying gravity." Idina, I think, is a bit more acting-ish, which gives her more points, but Kerry's voice is amazing (and British :-) Helen, as Glinda, I could do without. Either way, I won't be able to see either of them any time soon, so I'm exceedingly sad. **Bleu**, I actually had the misfortune of carrying a stool sample to the lab in a hospital once, and running into a friend. It was awkward, but much too amusing in hindsight. For her, at least.

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Broken

"You broke it," Addison says accusingly.

"I did not such thing," Mark refutes.

"Yes, you did. It's basically dead now."

"I did not!"

"I am not going to play this game, Mark. You're sleeping outside tonight. Rough it out, Jack London style."

They stare helplessly at each other as Derek walks up behind them, blissfully unaware that Mark has (accidentally) snapped the framework of the tent.

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References: Jack London wrote three books about surviving in the wilderness with basically nothing. The event in this actually happened, though, on a bike trip I took a few years ago with a class. I, luckily, did not have to sleep outside.

Review!


	15. Drink

**distorted realities**, I'll wholeheartedly agree with you there. **TerribleKate**, it's great that you have such a great reaction to my drabbles. It's very encouraging that you...act like your dog when you ask her if she has to pee...believe me, though, strange as that description is, I know exactly what you're talking about, and it makes me happy. **Bleu**, so very gracefully. The secret to these ficlets: Keep them short and skimp on internal dialogue (unless you really know what you're doing) so that any differences between your characterizations and the canon ones aren't noticeable. I think that's the secret, anway.

Anyway. This one should be set during 3.03. You'll see how.

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Drink

Meredith's poison of choice is tequila, and she knows this because she's not stupid.

Derek's is scotch.

Cristina's is anything that spells happy brain cell death, and she knows this because Erin is just like her.

Mark's is vodka, and it's the only thing they can ever really agree on, so Nick and Jordan were they.

She feels like she can perform surgery on the bar right now, watching Joe mix another screwdriver, because she's that wasted.

But as her hand shakes when she brings the glass to her lips, she decides that there is a reason why God designated a day just for drinking.

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Reference: This one's a bit obscure. Nick and Jordan were the supporting characters in _The Great Gatsby_, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, in which they dated for a while, but they criticized each other about everything except for the fact that everyone needed a drink. Unsurprisingly, this is the only reason I still remember them. They were only mentioned as a couple a few times, though, so...(Nick was also the narrator, but that's not the point)

Review!


	16. Rain

**Twilight and Silence**, I do, indeed, have a drabble about muffins, though it's number 80-something. You'll have to wait until then.

Anyway. Miranda! Oh, how I love writing Miranda Bailey.**

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Rain

"It's raining."

"I know. There will be car accidents, there will be slipping and falling, and there will be freak colds from running around in it, and someone will be a smartass and break his back trying to build an ark."

"Miranda, this _is_ Seattle."

"And contrary to what you may think, people are just as stupid here as they are everywhere else in the world."

"I like the rain."

"Then you'll like this place just fine."

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Reference: ...Noah's ark! Bible story! And yes, I know...Seattle, rain, old old story...

But anyway. Review! Because I have to write a paper on racism, and, for some odd reason, I can't think of a starting point. Not that is has anything to do with reviewing.

But you should do it, anyway.


	17. Enemies

**TerribleKate**, everyone wants to give Bailey a hug! She's just so...hug-needable. **distorted realities**, I wish I could live there. It's 75 degrees right now. Blehhhhhh...

Childhood Addison again, exploring a way in which she...wasn't like everyone else. Maybe. I don't know, I just wanted to do one that starts off...

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Enemies

"Addison Montgomery! You're going down!"

Addison makes a face at Mary and saunters over to her mother, who smiles tiredly as she asks her daughter, "What have you been doing to poor Mary?"

"I haven't done anything," the girl says, her face a mask of innocence that her mother has learned to see through long ago.

"You didn't hit her, did you?"

"Of course not!"

"Or said anything mean?"

"No!"

"Then why would she threaten you?"

"I don't know. She stole my stuffed sheep the other day, but I haven't done anything."

"That's good."

"Yet."

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Reference: Mary. Sheep. Well...lamb, but that would be too obvious. Mary Had A Little Lamb. It originated in Mother Goose before it became that god-awful song. 


	18. Children

Eeegh. Not one of my favorites, but I wanted a resident Addison, so...here she is. We'll get to my favorites soon, I promise.

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**Children**

Addison paces around the locker room, wearing holes in the linoleum floor.

Derek catches her shoulders and makes her sit. "You'll be fine. It's just like teaching kindergarten."

"Derek, what if I screw up? What if one of my interns kills someone by accident? What if one of them stabs me with a pair of forceps?"

"Addi. They're kids here. They're just kids." She flicks invisible dust off her lab coat, and bites her lips.

"Just kids?"

"Yeah." If she ever catches herself flying with an umbrella, she'll commit suicide. Her interns stream into the locker room, and she might be ready for them.

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Reference: Mary Poppins was known for flying with an umbrella. Books by P.L. Travers. Aaaaand that's it.


	19. Sight

Ah yes, I loved that you guys loved the Mary Poppins thing. I just figured Addison to use a Miranda Bailey phrase.

I'm determined to mine this relationship of Addison and Derek before they...screwed up. Because for at least five years of her life, Addison was (I'm using quotes for a reason) "In love" with him. So...it's a big part of her life. And I can't just ignore that, or else I wouldn't respect myself as a writer. Okay, I'm done.

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Sight

She watches him from the observation deck because she has nothing better to do. She watches him probe into the most intimate part of a person's anatomy and try to fix their problems.

"Mr. Joyce? Can you see? How many fingers?"

Mr. Joyce mumbles that there might be three fingers waving in front of his eyes, and Derek's face breaks open into a wide grin.

He pops his neck, catching Addison's eye in the process and raises his eyebrows in a celebratory jig.

And she sees it. She sees it in his eyes, and her heart breaks, she's so in love.

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Reference: Mr. Joyce is none other than James Joyce, most well known for writing _Ulyesses_, a novel which is written entirely in stream-of-conciousness narrative and therefore rather psychological in its approach. I thought Joyce was a more fitting last name than Freud, that's all.


	20. Fire

To the Addek supporters: I was all Team Addek! until Mark came along, and then I really started hating Derek around the Prom episode. So until they make Derek less annoying, I'm afraid I can't support Addek. **Twilight and Silence**, thank you! But then again, I'm still in school, so I guess I _have_ to find a use for learning all the literature.

NOW we're getting into my favorites. Angsty Addek. It's almost as addicting as Maddison.

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Fire

She's never really liked red, and it's almost entirely because wearing it makes her look like a flaming torch, the sort used to hunt opera ghosts and such.

So she sits, staring red-eyed at the flickering candle on the kitchen table, wondering exactly why she has bothered lighting it.

She won't blow it out, though, because some sort of twisted symbolism in her mind has associated the flame with Derek, and if she blows it out, then he'll really be gone.

But she exhales once, too shakily, and the candle goes out, and she can't breathe anymore.

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Reference: _Phantom of the Opera_. By Gaston Leroux. Opera Ghosts are always hunted with flaming torches, though the effectiveness of the said torches is...questionable.

Note: I love you five or six people who review every single drabble. It really makes my day. BUT, it's the same five or six every time, and I'm really starting to think that I have a very limited, yet very darling, range of readers. So. If I can get two or three new people to just review every once in a while, that would be awesome. Please, cater to my non-existant self-esteem!


	21. And

I don't have the time to reply to all your wonderful reviews, so I can only say: THANK YOU, you guys have boosted my squandered self-esteem for a good long while. You can now all go back to lurking.

Mister Snuffles, as you will meet here, is a little guy I created in the story "Mister Snuffles." He makes a cameo appearance in "Quiet," too, I think. Both are Maddison-themed, and, oddly, so is this one. Yay, back to the world as it should be!

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And

"Just you and me now," she says. "Mark and Addison. And Mister Snuffles," she whispers.

"And Mister Snuffles," Mark says, equally quiet.

"And no Derek."

"Addison?"

"Yeah?"

"It's not going to be okay. But we'll make it." She looks away, too tired to acknowledge him.

"I just want a shower."

"Okay."

"And some pancakes. And a drink. And another drink. And..." She doesn't say a loaf of bread, or a jug of wine, but she can feel the last words tearing up her throat.

"And?"

"And you."

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Reference: "A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou." _Rubaiyat. _Maddison deserves something like that.


	22. New Year

**Twilight and Silence**, I logged on last night and saw that you reviewed almost every single one of my stories. I can't tell you how much that means to me. You're amazing. **Bleu**, "And" is probably one of my top ten favorites, so...Yay! You love it too!

Another Childhood Addison, perhaps exploring a way in which her mother was--um. Disappointing, I guess. It's a bit complicated.

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New Year

"Addi. Addi, wake up."

"I feel like Alice in Wonderland. I missed it, didn't I?"

"Yeah, you did, honey."

"Why'd you let me sleep?"

"You looked tired."

Wow, thanks mom."

"Make a New Year's resolution, Addi. One you're going to keep."

"I resolve to stay up until midnight next New Year's Eve."

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Reference: _Alice in Wonderland _by Lewis Carroll. Too big and too small, I think Addison means.


	23. Life

Yet another Derek-Addison contrast drabble. I'm having too much fun with this.**

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Life

Derek pushes himself up on one elbow and regards a drowsy Addison with an intense stare.

"You're going to ask me something, so go ahead and ask it."

"What's the meaning of life, Addi? When we really get down to it?" She smiles gently up at him.

"Now? You're asking me the meaning of life _now_? You know, the last time someone asked that, he got turned into a butterfly." She snorts. "Derek, I am _tired_. And I have early surgery tomorrow."

"Well, you told me to ask." She pretends to think for a few seconds.

"The meaning of life...is to let your girlfriend go to sleep or face certain death."

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Reference: Addison got it wrong; Chuang Tzu actually dreamed he was a butterfly, and woke up, and wondered if he wasn't a butterfly dreaming he was a man. Either way, it's backwardsly philosophical. This is actually referenced by Terry Pratchett, in _Thief of Time_ (where I originally got the idea). I'm not going to get into the whole conversation, but suffice it to say, Miss Susan asks "How did he write his poems? He didn't flap around making information rich patterns in the air or laying eggs on cabbage leaves?" And then "He was probably a man. Interesting, but doesn't get us anywhere."

Wow, that was long. Review!


	24. Months

I don't like this one. I really don't. But I had to do months, and I was determined not to do an "Addison's favorite month" because it's so _obvious_. But. Anyway. That's the price I pay.

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Months

It's been a month, and he still won't look at her. Oh, he sees her, but he doesn't really look. He never sees intentionally, and that's what stings.

Two months ago, it might have killed her, she's so desperate with Mark.

Four months ago, she wouldn't have noticed, so caught up without him that she's developed a buffer, because she's determined not to feel.

Eight months ago, and she would be happy with his non-looking.

But it's been one month since she's come to Seattle, and now it's just _Gossip Girls _with scalpels.

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Reference: This is, I think, the only anachronism in this 100, but I've been frustrated with the presence of _Gossip Girls_ in my school since...they started. Cecily von Ziegesar wrote a series of novels called _Gossip Girl #insipidminddeterioration _that, if it were not for the ridiculously annoying characters, might have something to say about today's society. It's all about rich girls in the Upper East Side partying it up and being racist and dating recreational drug addicts. The plot lines are only realisitcally feasible for upscale private boarding school girls. And while I've never read a book, I know all about them because of my classmates. Reminds me of Grey's, specifically Callie's "We're still in high school," line.

Wow. That was as bad as "Life."


	25. Summer

**shoppingal**, I think I misled you. I meant, I refuse to do an "Addison's favorite month" because it's such an obvious way to use the prompt. SOMEone will do the "yadayadayada was Addison's favorite month" drabble, and I refuse to join the multitude.

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Summer

The air smells sickeningly sweet around her. It's sickly sweet and it's thick and damp, and she doesn't want to be here. She pouts as her father leads her through the apple orchard, refusing to listen to his lecture on fruit.

And suddenly she's up, lifted high above her father's head, and there's a pockmarked green apple staring her in the face. She sticks her tongue out, and carefully pulls at it, almost surprised when it falls easily into her hands.

She eats the whole thing, wondering briefly if she could go James-and-the-Giant-Peach with it, sour as it is.

Even if she's rich now, she still picks her own apples in the summer.

* * *

Reference: _James and the Giant Peach, _by Roald Dahl. It's been a while since I've read it, but the gist is the same. 


	26. Too Much

To the person who doesn't know how to use apostrophes: That's great. Unfortunately, you can't even spell the name of your favorite book correctly. So I'll respect your choice, but please...don't inform me of them. **Bleu, **hopefully, has decided to cooperate, but if it hasn't...(wait...how would you be reading this if it hasn't? Hmmm...) I'll hear about it on the news, won't I? Please do something that drastic, I'd love it. **Addicted1, **I've seen those books! And I always wanted to read them, but I've never gotten around to actually _buying_ one.

Anyway. Maddison! Oh, how I love my Maddison.

**

* * *

**

**Too Much**

"It's too much," she whispers to Mark. "This is too much, and we can't do it any more."

"What are you talking about?" His thumb makes circles on her face, tracing the lines of her half-smile, her nose, her eyelids.

"We can't keep doing this, Mark, because then you'll be in danger of falling in love with me," she says, though she's not sure why this is a bad thing.

"...What if I do? What's going to happen?" She wants to hit that smirk.

"Then I'll fall in love with you, too. We can't be in love." He laughs. "I will! I'll end up loving you. It always happens. Hans says so."

He kisses her, maybe a bit too much, and all she can mutter between kisses is "I will," which soon melt away into nothing.

* * *

Reference: Hans is our dear friend Hans Christian Anderson, who introduced all of us to True Love and Happily Ever After 


	27. Dark

**Bleu**, I think I'm having conniption fits over the canon Maddison. It's about to kill me. **shoppingal**, I don't think anyone knows what Addison's favorite month actually is. But I'm willing to be that it's...October. Why? I have no idea.

Another one with Mark!

**

* * *

**

**Dark**

Mark has these lights that, when a certain button is touched, turn off, but not quite. It's still dark, but only in the sense that there are now shadows. And shadows always have light somewhere to cast them.

He calls it a light diffuser, but it's not really, because a light diffuser only takes light that's already there and makes it softer. It doesn't make light on its own. She calls it a dawnzer, and doesn't tell him why.

She really hates it, though, because it cheats her of the real darkness.

But it's the only way she can find the way to the bathroom without shocking her pupils into oblivion.

* * *

Reference: The reason Addison doesn't tell him? Dawnzer was from _Ramona the Pest_, the book in that eternally fun children's series by Beverly Cleary. God, those were great books. 


	28. Strangers

Mm, yay! Everyone got the Ramona reference. And **Addicted1**, I will. Eventually, I swear. _Mitch and Amy_! I completely forgot about Mitch and Amy. "Look, here come our fiends!" Or something like that. Ah, good books.

Anyway. Cristina! I seem to have lost some of my Yang words, even though they were the first one I ever wrote for Grey's, but I'll get them back! Soon! I swear I'll peel myself off Maddison and do a Cristina ficlet!

**

* * *

**

**Strangers**

"I feel like I'm invading."

"You're not."

"Then why do I feel like I am?"

"Because we're strangers."

"You're very straightforward, Dr. Yang."

"Psh."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, considering that your first words to Meredith included 'sleeping with my husband,' I'm the kettle, you're the pot."

"Oh. I see. Well. ...You're good at what you do, Yang. I don't want to be strangers for long."

"Yeah, we still are."

"...Of course."

* * *

Reference: I cheated. "The pot calling the kettle black," is just a really overused idiom, and so very Grey's. Meredith and Benjamin Franklin? I am justified.


	29. Writer's Choice: Rock

**Twilight and Silence**, I don't think they've had a conversation, either. The writers need to get on that. At any rate, I just need to find a Cristina time frame, that I've got written out in my mind for. That was an awkward sentence.

Anyway. On the fanfic100 challenge, the last 5 are prompts of the writer's choice, which I then continued in the vein of the already given prompts. You'll see how, once I've got all five up. I've made myself a Specialist Addison drabble, though it doesn't have to be specialist. I'm not too sure if attendings have desk. No, I'm lying, I know they do. Well, it fits better as New York Attending Addison. So pretend it's that.

**

* * *

**

Writer's Choice: Rock

She doesn't have paperweights on her desk. She has a cumbersome, awkwardly placed rock that weighs down her paperwork with a morbid finality.

She used to have a spike, but Derek almost impaled his hand on it a few years ago, and out it went.

It's a garish, grey and red monstrosity, the kind that Herot would be made of.

She only keeps it around so she can pick it up threateningly and take aim at someone's head.

* * *

Reference: This one's awkward; Herot is the mead hall in _Beowulf_, and absolutely NOTHING could tear it down, except fire, like...ten thousand years after it was built. I just have to justify studying the thing in AP Language.


	30. Beginnings

**XAddisonShepherdX, **I absolutely loathed Beowulf, and all the mead that came with him. **Bleu**, I'm actually horrible at writing symbolism, even though I love finding it in other works. It's very strange. But anyway, yes, that would be a great interpretation of the rock and the spike.

The very first stirrings of Maddison. I think. Well, we all know what they lead to, and that's all that matters.

**

* * *

**

Beginnings

She hates shaking hands, because it's so unnecessary. There's no need to spread germs for the sake of introduction. But she shakes the offered hand, in no way acknowledging that fact that its owner is ridiculously attractive.

"Addison Montgomery."

He takes entirely too long to respond, and she can feel a sort of resentment build up against his handsomeness. If he takes much longer, she'll have to kill him and eat his liver, and that is no way to start off med school.

"Mark. Mark Sloan."

And goddamn it, he has a friend in this class, too.

* * *

Reference: Kill him and eat his liver? Classic Hannibal Lecter line, guys. It's originally in _Silence of the Lambs _by Thomas Harris.


	31. Birthday

**NeoTroi79**, almost every book that's required in AP lit tends to be engrossing for a while and then...exceedingly annoying. It _is_ very depressing.

Another childhood Addison, this time based on something in real life. Insane, I know.

**

* * *

**

Birthday

There's a cake sitting on the counter in a white cardboard box. Addison is picked up, resting on her mother's hip, and she admires the cake, not quite sure what it is.

It's really a beautiful cake, coffee, with butter cream icing and puffs of whipped cream around the edges. A chocolate bean is settled on each puff, and it's Addison's first taste of chocolate in her life, an epiphany, Helen Keller signing "water."

She laughs in delight, not knowing that this birthday would be her first memory.

* * *

Reference: Helen Keller's famous water thingy...part of her autobiography, _The Story of My Life_.


	32. Yellow

Oh my god, darlings, I really intended to update this yesterday! Something's wrong with my server...I'll upload an extra one tonght to make up for it, I promise!

**literally critical, **you are on Google. It's a beautiful thing. As to _Wicked_, take "As Long as You're Mine" and compare it to any 80's romance music. It's uncanny (but excusable, since...y'know...it's Broadway). Cold war spy novels are great, as are movies. I'm excited right now, because _The Good German_ is finally coming out in a theater near me, and it's noir. _Noir_! **Bleu**, that was, indeed, my own cake. It was heavenly. **Maybelline1802**, I'm glad I have another convert. This makes me happy. Very happy.

Anyway. I was _so _tempted to plug Coldplay here, but restrained myself because I'm borderline-psychotically obsessed.

**

* * *

**

Yellow

The accelerator pedal is slightly loose. It goes down a little too quickly, which should, but doesn't, worry Addison.

She's never needed to worry about added acceleration; she gets her brakes retooled every month for a reason. (Her routine is as predictable as Napoleon.)

Besides, when she's running late, it only makes it easier for her to catch the yellow lights.

* * *

Reference: This isn't actually a literary reference, but a historical one: Napoleon, short French general that he was, only had one fighting style: Line up his men and shoot at the other line of men in an open field. Whoever had the most ammunition and soldiers won. Amazingly, he got a lot of ground covered and influenced the Generals in the American Civil War before geurilla warfare took over.


	33. Triangle

A second update, just like I promised.

I just finished watching the new episode of Grey's. No major spoilers, but OMG MADDISON AND BURKETINA and FIE ON ADDEX. Okay, I'm done.

**

* * *

**

Triangle

It's such a stupid shape. Such a stupid, stupid shape. It only has three sides, and it's very boring. The only mildly amusing thing that happens is a tinkling "ping," and the novelty wears off after a few seconds.

She glares at the offending piece of metal, willing it to burn like paper (Guy Montag thoughts.)

Whoever made the triangle a band instrument needs to be choked.

* * *

Reference: Guy Montag is from _Farenheit 451 _by Ray Bradbury. Irony: It's a book about burning books.


	34. Why?

Yes, yes, I know. LATE AGAIN, YANG. I know. But it's up!

**

* * *

**

Why?

At the age of three, her father had quickly stemmed every start to the "Why?" game by saying "To make you ask." Which, in the long run, doesn't really make sense; she _could_ still say "But why to make me ask?"

But then she wouldn't understand exactly what she was asking, which always bothers her.

She used to ask why of her patients, too, in a Nancy Drew sort of way.

It gets to the point, now, that she doesn't want to ask why any more.

* * *

Reference: Nancy Drew! Carolyn Keene is a freaking legacy with that character.


	35. Sixth Sense

More Pre-Maddison Maddison. Everyone, go read **Nothing is Real** and show some love for Maddison Baby Drama Angst, because it's lonely.

**

* * *

**

**Sixth Sense**

"How'd you know I was in here?"

"I have a sixth sense about these things."

"You're so full of crap, Sloan."

"You're crying, Montgomery."

"So?"

"So, I figured I'd offer a shoulder for a sad lady to cry on."

"What a charming Lancelot. You only want to see me cry."

"I do not. I hate to see you cry. In fact, this is the only time I've seen you cry. It tears so deeply within me."

"You're a liar."

"Aha, see, I knew you were going to say that."

* * *

Reference: Lancelot, of course, from the Arthurian legends, so brave and gallant, who had an affair with his best friend's wife. Mark is a sort of Lancelot, I suppose.


	36. Writer's Choice: Paper

Another writer's choice! I'm having a lot of fun with these. Especially with Addison Derek differences.

**

* * *

**

**Writer's Choice: Paper**

She doesn't know when she started writing things down again. In grade school, she wrote notes to herself, convinced that a future Addison would read them and smile.

But now, she's just relishing the feeling of writing on a clean sheet of paper with an ink pen that glides with some amount of control over the smooth white surface, forming letters like Shakespeare.

She sits back and inspects the words before ripping out the page and sticking it to the bathroom mirror for Derek to read.

"Out of coffee and eggs, I'm picking some up on way home; DON'T get them now."

He always gets Folgers.

* * *

Reference: Shakespeare...


	37. Days

**McDreamy**, we all know the meaning of life is lawn. **FoxyWombat**, thanks for giving this a chance! And for having a great penname.

Mm...not one of my favorites, but we can get through these next two or three to the other side of the tunnel. Can't we?

**

* * *

**

Days

It's almost Christmas break, and she taps her pencil against the desk impatiently, waiting for the teacher to release them from class. Her inner Stargirl is desperate to jump up and scream.

Instead, in the top right hand corner of her notebook, she doodles an elaborate "4."

Tomorrow is Tuesday. Which is fine, it's Reading Day. The day after tomorrow is Wednesday, and she has one midterm. And after the English midterm, it's French and Calculus on Thursday, and on Friday it's Biology and European history. Four days.

She's never known four days to crawl slower.

* * *

Reference: _Stargirl_, by Jerry Spinelli. I've re-read that book thousands of times, and each time I find something new in the text. It's amazing.


	38. Work

Another abstract one. I think I was in a contemplative mood when I wrote this.

**

* * *

**

Work

Productivity shouldn't be measured in deaths, or lives, or even births.

It is, though, in her line of work, beginning, middle, end, and sometimes it shouldn't be. Sometimes it should just matter about the end.

She wishes she could live in that moment, that ending with proud new parents, with a job well done, forever.

And then the hive buzzes, and the work continues, bees coming and going, and she can't stop them for just one person.

* * *

Reference: this isn't a very good one. _The Secret Life of Bees _by Sue Mon Kidd is not about bees (much) it's about racism and acceptance and parental love. Well, maybe in that case, it is a bit coherent.


	39. Fixed

A Preston-Addison conversation! I always thought they had a good relationship.

**

* * *

**

Fixed

"Preston, is the coffee-maker working?"

"Does anyone ever use it?"

"Yes, people use it. I'm sure the interns used it all the time until they discovered the hospital café, and I want to feel accomplished today, so I'm making my own coffee, Brian Robeson style."

"Uh-huh. The interns discovered the café because the coffee-maker is broken."

"No it's not."

"Addison, the entire filtering system is shot."

"...Ha. Fixed it."

"That was instant coffee."

"It went through the filter and made coffee, didn't it?"

"Are you seriously going to drink that?"

"No. You have ten dollars? I'll get you one, too."

* * *

Reference: Brian Robeson is the brave boy in _The Hatchett_, by Gary Paulsen, who survived in the wilderness with...um...a hatchett.


	40. Thanksgiving

I've been lazy about getting back to my reviewers, haven't I? I'm sorry. I've been working on _Seussical the Musical_ as stage manager and it's harrowingly exhausting.

**

* * *

**

Thanksgiving

"Well," Mark says in forced joviality, "what a delightful turkey you guys are having."

Addison glares at him. "Derek caught some fish, Mark, at least _pretend_ that it's not gross and smelly."

"All right. I'm thankful for your offer of Thanksgiving dinner, although I have to charge you with false advertising."

She continues mashing the potatoes, in her first attempt at making mashed potatoes, ignoring the Odd Henderson that has invaded her home.

"What are you thankful for?" he asks. She eyes the liquor cabinet.

"I'm thankful for vodka."

* * *

Reference: _A Thanksgiving Visitor_ is a short story by Truman Capote about a boy named Buddy, whose caretaker invites the entirely unscrupulous and impolite Odd Henderson over for Thanksgiving. Buddy sees Odd as an invader of sorts into his Thanksgiving dinner. Some life lesson is learned, apparently, but I'm not really worried about that.


	41. Friends

This one ran a bit long, but the idea was just so...there. It's set a few months before the Maddek drama explodes. And I've put in a mention of Savannah because **Bleu** wrote a wonderful, wonderful story about Savannah and Addison's relationship, and I'd _completely _forgotten about Savannah until I read it. So now I'm introducing her and figuring out a way of explaining Erin (who was originally going to perform Savannah's role, but obviously can't because Savannah _is_ there). It was okay, I was going to phase Erin out before the beginning of the show anyway. Story development and all.

**

* * *

**

Friends

"What kind of mother?" Erin is close to screeching. "What kind of _woman_ falls in love with her husband's best friend and produces a _lovechild_?"

Addison makes the appropriate sympathetic noises, her mind worrying over this new development. She'll soon have to break out the good ice cream (not the low cal, non-dairy, soy milk kind, because life has seriously done some screwing here.)

"I am a third year _resident_, Addison; I don't have _time_ to find out that I was a product of my mother's slutty inability to keep her pants on. I mean," Erin's arms flail around her, "does the word fidelity mean anything to her?"

She doesn't ask Addison if she agrees. There are certain things you shouldn't have to ask your best friend (even if people like Savannah exist now).

And because she doesn't ask, she doesn't see Addison nervously twist her wedding band, she doesn't see the flash of alarm.

It would have been the end of it if she had.

* * *

Reference: Not a book reference, but the low cal, non-dairy, soy milk, when-you-get-screwed-over-all-the-time-ice-cream is from _Friends_ the TV show, in a conversation between best friends Rachel and Monica. Did anyone else think that Rachel and Monica weren't exactly the healthiest best friends? Because that's what I'm aiming for here with Erin.


	42. Thunder

Once again, not a favorite, but a nice scene, even if it has Derek. Bleh.

**

* * *

**

Thunder

She wishes, just once, that thunder can be seen.

She bets that it's more colorful than lightning, and probably a lot brighter. She bets lightning would be Harker next to Van Helsing.

She sits, staring out the window at the lightning, hands clasped over her ears at she feels the vibration of the thunder, only a few hundred feet away. Her eyes burn from staring at the light.

Derek's hands descend around hers, and she looks up, smiling, because he can't hear a thing, either.

* * *

Reference: Van Helsing and Harker, from _Dracula_, by Bram Stoker, and I swear it's the last Dracula reference I'm making.

**Note**: Okay guys, this it getting ridiculous. 7, 3, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0?! Those numbers are the amount of reviews I've gotten over the last few chapter, and while I hate review trolling, (on my part, I can understand the purpose) I'm going to have to set out another review collection plate. One or two new people, that's all!


	43. She

So, basically, I love you guys. Thanks for pandering to my insecurities! **FoxyWombat**, I hope you did well on the LSATs. Those sound silly and un-fun. **Bleu**, your writing is wonderful, and I hope everyone reads it because their lives are incomplete without it. Absolutely.

**

* * *

**

She

She has brown, curly hair that can't ever be tamed. Her white coat hangs crookedly off her shoulders; two ink pens are always in the pocket.

She smiles, sometimes, a simple curving of her lips, but rarely with feeling, and usually in the delivery room; Galadriel come to life.

Her name is Aisling; she's a neonatal surgeon at the hospital, and Addison, waiting with her father for news on the new baby nephew, wants to be just like her when she grows up.

* * *

Reference: Galadriel, queen of the elves (or the equivalent) from _Lord of the Rings_, in which elves that aren't killed in war die from sadness. Aisling is just an Irish name.


	44. Star

Meh. Addek angst. We're pushing past the middle slump!

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* * *

**

Star

She's never wished upon a star before, mostly because when Geppetto did, he made the worst bedtime story ever, which she had to listen to every night because her parents thought it was cute.

She's never sung the song "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," because she knows exactly what a star is. She doesn't really like stars, to tell the truth.

Which is why she feels so strange watching this star shower.

It's pretty and all, but she can't bring up the courage to wish herself back to life.

* * *

Reference: Gepetto, from _Pinocchio_, wished for his puppet to be brought to life. "When you wish upon a star" and so on.


	45. Taste

Hmmm...I don't know if I like this one. Because sickness is no fun. But the activities are pretty amusing.

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* * *

**

Taste

The tea tastes like lemon and restless insomnia, and goes rather horribly with the bagel that Derek brought her before leaving.

She hates being sick, because then she can't taste a thing, unless she drinks tea. And she hates drinking tea.

It's too hot to be downed like medicine, and it's too insipid to be worth the cooling time.

No wonder Sherlock Holmes did cocaine. All he ever ate was tea and bread.

Addison lays back on her bed, sniffles, and watches old ladies spin big wheels on TV.

Apparently, it's an American tradition.

* * *

Reference: Sherlock Holmes did indeed do cocaine. According to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, at least, and he would know.

Just to be clear, the TV show is _not _Wheel of Fortune, it's The Price is Right. Bob Barker has entertained millions of Americans on their sick days, including me.


	46. Dinner

An uncharacteristically woman-less Mark? Priceless.

**

* * *

**

Dinner

She's missing a good dinner for this; Mark calls her thirty minutes before a reception for "an emergency," and she knows it's because he's falling down drunk at a bar and she won't judge him for it.

"I hope you know," she grits between her teeth, helping him into the spare bedroom in the brownstone, "that I could be having lobster right now."

"Shame," he mumbles. She deposits him unceremoniously on the bed. "Cary broke up with me."

"Frankenstein grew a brain, did she?" He gives her the finger, unaware that she's actually standing on the other side of the bed. "I'll just go make some macaroni and cheese."

* * *

Reference: _Frankenstein_ by Mary Shelley. Cary is not Addison's favorite person in the world, as seen in "No Roses Are Allowed."


	47. Not Enough

And now we have Perfectionist Addison. I wonder if I'm making her a little too complex...

* * *

**Not Enough**

It's never enough; ever. The intense work schedule, the stressful surgeries. It's never enough, and she's fallen asleep on an abandoned gurney again.

Damn. Sandman strikes again.

She can't sleep, here, can't sleep anywhere because words are in her head, whispering quietly all the things she needs to do, still has to do, to make it through this internship.

But, as she pulls herself up to go check on a lab result, it occurs to her that she's not getting enough sleep.

* * *

Reference: The Sandman is a throwback to general bedtime mythology and also to Terry Pratchett in _Soul Music _in which we find out: "We all know that the Sandman puts children to sleep by throw sand in their eyes. Of course, on the Disc, he doesn't bother to take the sand out of the sack." 


	48. Water

So, I was at a swim meet all weekend, and now I'm exhausted, and I'm SO sorry I didn't update!

* * *

**Water**

Her finger is cut; she's nicked it on her father's razor blade because she hasn't figured out exactly what a razor is for yet.

She holds it under the tap, the cold just numbing the pain in her thumb.

The water fascinates her, whirling down the drain with swirls of blood, almost calming in its motion. The color, strangely, matches her hair.

She'll remember the sight twenty years later, washing someone else's blood from her forearms.

* * *

Reference: There isn't one. I'm about to collapse, and I decided, that, since my fatigue is due to the water, I'm not going to give it the honor of a good literary reference. Sorry, guys. They will be back in the nest one, I promise. Good _night_. 


	49. Circle

Short, and a bit sacrilege. Still, exhausted, so I'll be more elaborate tomorrow. Hopefully.

**

* * *

**

Circle

So this is karma. This is the idea of "what goes around comes around." Poison oak in uncomfortable places.

Well, it's no Macbeth, but dammit, why does everything have to go in circles?

If Derek keeps smirking like that, he'll have to get herpes.

Karma says so.

* * *

Reference: _Macbeth_, the most depressing play possible by Shakespeare, might as well be renamed _Karma: Why You Shouldn't Mess With It_. You get haunted by ghosts and your wife goes insane and your country cheers when you die. It's pretty grotesque.


	50. Writer's Choice: Scissors

A college drabble! Yay! Well, I'm excited. Erin and Mark are the focus here, though, not Addison, and I kinda liked it. Hmmm.

* * *

**Writer's Choice: Scissors**

"Oh my God, I'm going to kill you," Addison screams. Derek quickly mops up the spilled buffer.

Two feet away, Erin and Mark look over from their lab station. "I don't think that's in the instructions," Erin says dryly.

"She's brandishing a pair of scissors at him," Mark replies, though his concern for his best friend's safety is minimal.

"Whoa there, Boo Radley." Luckily, Addison lowers the scissors, and settles for just glaring at Derek.

"Yep, they're going to get married," Mark says with finality.

"Might as well accept it."

* * *

Reference: Boo Radley is the character in _To Kill A Mockingbird_ by Harper Lee. The rumor about him says that he stabbed his father in the leg with a pair of scissors.

This concludes the first half of this collection, and also the first part of my Writer's Choice prompts, which was "Rock, Paper, Scissors." It's halfway over, guys!


	51. Outsides

Agh, I've missed another one, haven't I? Oh, I'm so sorry. Anyway. Hrm. Let's not get into last night's episode, and just revel in the slightly confusifying drabble of today, shall we?

* * *

**Outsides**

"Why does it look like Kris Kringle threw up on the front porch?" Mark asks accusingly, storming into the house.

She looks up from the phone. "Mark, that is no way to talk about festive decorations of the Yuletide."

He moves closer. "It's only the day after Thanksgiving. And you've dyed your hair. Blonde."

"Mmhmm?" He watches her watch the phone.

"Maybe you should just..."

"No, Mark." He moves away from that topic, and goes down the one he knows more about.

"Addison, it's not the outside that matters."

"Yes, it does, Mark. The outside does matter." She keeps staring at the phone.

* * *

Reference: I cheated. Kris Kringle, though in _Twas the Night_, is a combination of German/Swedish/any other Scandinavian folklore.

Remember the line about the phones, because I'm tying it in to something else.


	52. How?

Yet another, and once I've started reading GA fiction from the Just In list again, I've realized how many _awesome_ stories have surfaced since last time I checked. There's too many to list here, but just go read them. All of them.**  
**

* * *

**How?**

How does he do it?

"Marry me, Addison." What the Hell? Where were the candles, the romantic view, the subtle sliding across of a velvet box, the going down on one knee?

She stands, stunned, an infuriating half inch shorter than him.

"This is unexpected," is the only thing she can say, like Billie Joe, real words dancing from her brain only to sit stupidly on her tongue.

"Would you like me to warn you the next time I propose?"

She takes the ring, held out in his hand like a pebble, inspects it in the dim light from the city. The ferryboat rocks, and she leans against him for stability.

"You don't need to propose again." And she still doesn't know how he does it.

* * *

Reference: Billie Joe...was the narrator of _Out of the Dust_, by Karen Hesse. She writes the whole story through blank verse, almost never speaking to the people that she writes about. It's pretty phenomenal. 


	53. Spade

Not my favorite, but a Toxic Erin one and a slightly Neurotically Determinate Addison.**  
**

* * *

**Spade**

Erin carefully inspects the instrument on the table.

"Addison, what's this?" Silence meets her question. "Addison?"

She steps out behind the apartment complex to find an obscene amount of overturned soil. "Oh dear god." She's listened to Addison talk (in a scarily cheerful voice) about growing flowers, but hasn't expected this.

"Erin! Hey." Erin holds up the garden trowel. "Oh, I was looking for that."

"What, ah, were you planning to do with this?"

"I'm gong to lure Cary back here and then brick her up and leave her to rot," Addison deadpans.

"That's the answer I'm looking for."

* * *

Reference: Brick her up and leave her there to rot is an idea from Poe's _Cask of Amatillado _in which the protagonist bricks up his enemy in in his wine cellar. Pretty first-rate Poe stuff. Cary is a recurring character who Addison strongly dislikes, and she shows up once or twice in this fic, and is the subject of two conversations in my other fics, though I can't remember which ones. 


	54. Winter

**FoxyWombat**: How uncanny. Does she have red hair?** Carsonfiles**: There are some, but I hope there's enough!

Anyway. Onto the drabble.

* * *

**Winter**

She loves winter. She loves bundling up in the cold, watching the snowfall, drinking hot chocolate. She's memorized Dr. Seuss's tale and can tell it without a pause. She wants to live in winter forever.

She hates winter. She hates the endless layer of clothes, the eternally dirty snow of the city, the static-y dry mornings. She's memorized all the TV commercials and can say them better than the announcers. She wants to move to Brazil and start over.

If she's asked her favorite and least favorite parts of winter, she'll say something roundabout and silly, but really, it's everything.

* * *

Reference: The Dr. Seuss tale is _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_, and watching the cartoon version on TV is basically the highlight of my Christmas. GOD, I'm such a dork. 


	55. Lovers

Somehow, all the drabbles featuring Erin seem to run long. Hmm. Anyway. College, Postdrunk Addison.

* * *

**Lovers**

Addison's eyes open, blearily, her head pounding angrily. She slowly registers a loosely defined pile of shapes and colors that might be associated with an irately amused roommate.

"Good morning, sunshine!" Erin sings, making sure to hit a piercingly high note. She takes a large gulp of coffee before continuing. "You know how much I hate this stuff, but I'm going to need it to stay awake in class today. Seeing as how _one_ of us needs to go to class."

Addison grunts.

"The next time," Erin says, "you decide to go Lady Chatterley on me, remember these tips: Don't slam the door. Don't giggle. And don't let Derek pass out drunk, naked, on top of your sheets."

* * *

Reference: _Lady Chatterley's Lover _by D.H. Lawrence is all about sex and actually got banned for a while for having so much sex in it. My English teacher loves it, and it's a bit scary that she tells us these things. 


	56. Colorless

**My Sharpie is Green**, your story was great. And I'm glad I have another Poe fan with me!**  
**

* * *

**Colorless**

It's stupid to call anything colorless. If it can reflect light, it has a color.

Unless she's lost a patient. A baby. And she's learned to be surgically numb to it, she understands accidents, gets the careless mistakes.

But there's a flash, an instant, between the realization of it and calling it, that to her, the entire world is nothing, a Camazotz prison. She knows what colorless looks like, and she can't get it out of her head.

* * *

Reference: Ah, you have to be an obsessed fan like me to get this. Camazotz was the planet in _A Wrinkle in Time_ by Madeline L'Engle. Its prisons were basically endless darkness for the people inside them. Seriously. Couldn't see a thing. 


	57. Teammates

Convo with Alex. Which, now that I look over it, kinda resembles the Cristina convo, only more sex potential. I stand by Maddison, though. We'll make it!**  
**

* * *

**Teammates**

"Dr. Karev, I need you to at least pretend to be interested in this surgery."

"With all due respect, Dr. Shepherd, I'm not very good at pretending."

"What a shame. And I was actually going to let you do something interesting today."

"Is bribing allowed?"

"Probably not. Karev, you're a talented surgeon. I want you on my team before the other harpies descend."

"I'm not much of a team player."

"Really. Then I guess you'll be on bedpan duty today."

"Fine, we're teammates."

"I'm captain."

* * *

Reference: The harpies, the precursor to the sirens, appeared first in Homer's _The Iliad_. Only they were more wily and less sexy, apparently. 


	58. Family

More Addek angst. I don't take that much pleasure from putting Addison through Hell, I swear. Besides, it's been...enough since the last one.

**

* * *

**

**Family**

She's not going home for Thanksgiving this year, and it's more upsetting than she prefers.

Going home would be saying that she's given up on Derek, that she's failed. That she loves Mark, who she _doesn't_.

Going home would mean letting Meredith win, even if it's not a competition (and even if it is, Meredith would be winning.)

Going home would mean crying into her mother's lap, pretending that the awkward words of consolation will be enough, twenty-five years after Addison graduated from this form of comfort. They used to be enough.

But she can't go home again.

* * *

Reference: The book, _You Can't Go Home Again _by Thomas Wolfe, is all about the loss of the feeling of having a hometown to go back to when life...sucks.


	59. Home

Aaargh. Not my best, but still...one of my favorites is coming up.

**

* * *

**

Home

Home smells like vanilla and cinnamon and a mystery scent that she never notices until she leaves.

This trailer does not smell like home.

Some idiot once said, "Home is where the heart is."

Her heart must be in a Bath and Body Works.

* * *

Reference: "Home is where the heart is." Totally American idiom that says home is wherever your love is. But since Addison (at this point) is not in love with Mark, and she's trying to love Derek (though I'm sure she's trying too hard to actually just sit there and be in love), she has no home.

Bath and Body Works, as wonderful as many of its lotions are, is the bane of all sinuses. Because once you get Moonlit Path, Jasmine, Orange Blossom, Sun Ripe Raspberry, and Sea Salt in one basket, it's no longer pleasant.


	60. Weeks

I think the alert system is messed up. I haven't been getting any all week. Hmmm...**  
**

* * *

**Weeks**

Three weeks since Mark has been here. Three long, hard weeks since Mark—why is she counting?

This is why, see, this is why she doesn't want him here, because then she starts doing stupid things like _counting_, measuring time based on his actions.

If word at the nurse's station is right, he's only slept with one other hospital employee. She must remember to send him a congratulatory scalpel in the eye.

Since when has Mark Sloan become the reference point for all her thoughts?

If she thinks about it, it's since she's met him, and hated him, and loved him, in a sick, Elizabeth Benet way of thinking.

But she's not going to think about it.

* * *

Reference: Did anyone else read _Pride and Prejudice_ and think that Elizabeth Benet thought entirely too much and too logically? Yes, I understand that Austen lived in a time of intelligence, but still... 


	61. Ends

Yet another overly long Erin drabble. I think I'm addicted to their dynamic, because they're not best friend material. And we all know that one pair of best friends, the ones who live like five minutes from each other but don't have a conversation more than five times a month, and they're still each other's _person_, and to suggest anyone else would be appalling for both. That's Erin and Addison.

* * *

**Ends**

They are horrible at keeping in touch. Addison knows this.

They both know they're horrible at keeping in touch, so Addison tells Erin not to call when she lands in England, and Erin agrees, before the words come out of their mouths.

It's better this way, without that hope in the first few months that this time will be different, that they'll call each other every night. It's better not to have to face that one day, when hope dies, when Erin falls asleep or Addison loses her number.

They can't be best friends if Erin is on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

So it's better not to pretend that they can.

And it's hard, staring at the phone, eyes finally dry over Derek, knowing that she can't call Erin, that Erin won't call her, that Erin probably doesn't even know about her and Derek.

This is the real end.

This is the end, and Pythias doesn't come back in time to save Damon.

* * *

Reference: Damon and Pythias were best friends in Greek mythology. Pythias is condemned for execution, Damon takes his place in prison while Pythias goes sort out his affairs, because Damon trusts Pythias to come back before his execution date (Or else Damon will get killed instead.) Pythias does come back, just in time, after overcoming five thousand obstacles, and the king is touched by the friendship and lets them both free. 

Anyway. Remember that Erin evidently hates cheaters ("41. Friends"), and therefore probably wouldn't save Addison, Actually, she isn't even around when the whole Maddek thing explodes.

"51. Outsides" mentions Addison's obsessive staring at the phone. This is why she's staring.


	62. Touch

**RainbowStevie**, I'm not really into OC's that much, either, but then...I mean, Addison had to have friends besides Derek and Mark in med school!

**

* * *

**

**Touch**

His hair is unbelievably soft. Ridiculously short, and unbelievably soft; she wonders what kind of conditioner he uses.

He's lying with his head in her lap, watching _Casablanca_. Her hands are kneading through his cropped hair, and his hands are lightly tracing the lines of her face.

It's a sad little apartment, with sad little furnishings, all her possessions piled up in boxes around them. Derek isn't here to help unpack, and they're not about to start without him. They've simply set up a TV and VCR, and settled in the bare dinginess.

She's running her fingers through his hair, and he's outlining the curves in her ear. This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

* * *

Reference: "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Last line in _Casablanca_, a wonderful, wonderful movie. 


	63. Shapes

For those slightly concerned with "61. Ends," no, that will not be the last of Erin. It _is_ her last role in Addison's life, but then again, these drabbles aren't in order.

**

* * *

**

**Shapes**

If she thinks about it carefully, head tilted to the side, eyes almost closed, a pair of forceps is really just a pointy triangle. A scalpel is a trapezoid. A retractor is a curvy rectangle.

She's careful not to think too much, or else she'll be trapped in a land of magical phantasmagorical shapes, gone like Bastian in Fantasia, thinking that they can do anything.

The shapes only look like they perform miracles.

* * *

Reference: Bastian in Fantasia is _The Neverending Story, _by Michael Ende. Towards the end, Bastian becomes in danger of being trapped in Neverending Land without his memories. Pretty good fantasy, though the films haven't been amazing. 


	64. Lightning

I cut Erin out of a future drabble, with the advent of the three-episode arc. So I've put her in here, which back-stories a scene in 'Some Kind of Miracle.' The last line still bothers me, but...

**

* * *

**

**Lightning**

When she first felt it, Erin described it as being struck by lightning, and not in a good-idea, Eureka! kind of way.

That sudden realization, that shock, knowing that _someone is dying_, knowing she's _not in control_, there is _nothing she can do_.

It hits Addison like lightning, too, and luckily, Erin is there to catch her.

Erin pushes her up against a wall and cradles her head in her hands, whispering lowly, whispering fiercely.

"Addison. Addison, Addison Forbes Montgomery, you listen to me. Listen. You do not get to break down, you do not get to fall apart, do you hear me? You do _not_ get to do that, because there is still a chance, dammit, and you do _not _get to give up when there's still a chance."

She doesn't remember what happens after that, only the words.

Ten years later, it hits her, electricity searing through her heart, that the words are all she has left to send Derek to Meredith.

* * *

Reference: Eureka! is what Archimedes was all about when he discovered the concept of displaced mass (or volume. I think it's mass). According to legend, he yelled "Eureka!" when the idea struck him in the tub, and he ran, stark naked, to tell the king all about it. The Greeks were very proud of him. 


	65. Air

A bit abstract, but not much. I'm supposed to be writing a paper, so sssshhhhhhhh...

**

* * *

**

Air

The air in New York is smelly. It's smoky and dank and dirty. Apart from Los Angeles, she's willing to bet that it's the most disease-infested air in the country; the Ankh-Morpork of the earth.

Either way, she takes a deep breath as she steps out of the hospital after her first day as an attending.

It's free, it's alive, it's hers, and for a few seconds, before her nose catches up with her brain, it's the sweetest air in the world.

* * *

Reference: Ankh-Morpork, of Terry Pratchett's satirical Discworld series, is a combination of London, New York, LA, and any other major city that's ever had pollution issues, corruption, and really bad sausage vendors. (Example: The river that divides Ankh and Morpork doesn't flow so much as ooze. It's hard to drown, but easy to suffocate.) It's a Very Nice Place to Visit.


	66. Orange

More incoherent high school Addison. YEAH!**  
**

* * *

**Orange**

nothing rhymes with orange  
But that's OAK, because  
Poems don't have to rhyme, they jst  
Have 2B broken up  
A  
l  
o  
t  
(Like  
This)  
& they dont hafta  
Make sense.  
Up away it goes!  
this is a poem  
about orng  
cAts  
that drink tea  
and sit

Addison can only hope that her teacher will see this as a brilliant channeling of e.e. cummings, and not an example of her tenuous grasp on the English language.

* * *

Reference: e. e. cummings is my favorite poet. He messes with punctuation and spelling. He's a crazy genius. 


	67. Lunch

**RainbowStevie**, it's more of an example of how Addison tries to recreate things (like love) and falls short by a little. Look up e.e. cummings and compare his poems ("raise the shade" and "a leaf falls on loneliness" are the ones I'm referencing) to Addison's attempt. She can copy it, but it's not the same thing, and she knows it.**

* * *

**

Lunch

There's never a set time for lunch. It just comes whenever she's hungry, and she remembers, sometimes, that she's only supposed to have one.

"You want to get some coffee? Bagel and cream cheese?" Derek asks.

"Derek, I've already had breakfast."

"Well. Lunch?" She sighs.

"It's five in the afternoon."

"We're not getting out any time to eat dinner." She considers.

"Yeah. Lunch it is."

* * *

Reference: There isn't one. I was hungry, and I didn't want to do a Fried Green Tomatoes, everything happens when you're eating, sort of scene. So I'm settling with an overworked Addison. Not one of my best, but my stomach is growling. 


	68. Passing

Set during the three-episode arc, though I can't remember which one (probably the first, though). It won't really make sense unless you've seen this particular scene.**  
**

* * *

**Passing**

She's really just passing by when she spots him in the elevator, and can't help but get on with him.

But she's not going to say anything, because she knows why. It's painfully obvious why, especially since he'd been sleeping in his office again.

So Derek and Mark and Preston pass by, and she prays that they won't say anything.

But Murphy's Law triumphs again, and they do.

"He dyed it," Mark says bluntly, in a very Mark kind of way.

And because he's Mark, she lets him pass.

She lets Preston pass, too.

And hits Derek.

* * *

Reference: Murphy's Law: Everything in a given situation can and will go wrong. Words to live by. 


	69. When?

Set a short while after # 41, "Friends," featuring a surprisingly clothed Addison and Mark, probably because of Addison's guilt.

* * *

**When?**

"So…when can we break out the vodka?"

"I don't think drinking would be a good idea, Addison."

"I'm fine."

"Yeah, I don't think so."

"I'm _fine_, Mark."

"Addison—"

"Oh my god. You never say no to a drink, I'm stewing in self-imposed guilt, so pour the goddamn vodka and party like Dionysus would have wanted us to."

"...Do you want me to call Erin?"

"No. Don't. You, don't call Erin unless your aorta bursts, and even then, limit your words to 'Mark dying.'"

"All right. Say—"

"If you _say_ 'Say when,' I will kill you."

* * *

Reference: Dionysus is the Greek god of wine and wild parties.

I've made Erin a cardio specialist, because...um...Burke needed a New York counterpart?


	70. Hours

Sometime during the bomb episode, this one.

**

* * *

**

**Hours**

They've been up there for hours. Hours and hours, Derek and Preston and Meredith and Cristina.

She can feel the tension, everyone waiting, waiting for something, anything. Eyes open, forced to see only for stability. So much depends on a potted plant. One sound, and the whole place could unravel.

And then it hits. She feels it a second before it actually hits, but it does, in her head, and she knows that something has blown up.

And it feels like hours before she sees Derek again.

* * *

Reference: "So much depends on a potted plant" is a riff on "So much depends on a wheelbarrow," a poem by William Carlos Williams. The idea is this: You're thinking about something, and you stare absentmindedly at an object because you're thinking so hard. For an instant, right before your eyes zone out, your entire life depends on that one object. For an instant, nothing else in the world matters, excapt that this object exists, and you're looking at it, and it's still there. So much depends on a potted plant.


	71. Sound

Random, incoherent, and relatable for anyone who's ever pulled an all-nighter. And I swear, I'll lay off the Erin drabbles after number 80.

* * *

**Sound**

Derek looks carefully into the living room. "That sounded like a dying chipmunk," he says to a shaking Addison. Mark looks in over his shoulder.

"Or, y'know," he says, "a small dog with Tourettes." Erin smiles, and Mark smiles back at her. "What did you do?" he asks.

"I'm not too sure, Sydney," Erin replies, a bit puzzled. "Addison's been awake since yesterday morning. I think she's hit Giggle Hour."

Derek turns to Mark. "She calls you Syndey?" Addison's laughter trails off into silent writhing and occasional gasps for breath, and Derek refocuses. "I mean, Giggle Hour. Does that..."

"Just as critical as it sounds."

* * *

Reference: Sydney is Sydney Carton from _A Tale of Two Cities_, who is in love with Lucie, who's married to Charles Darnay. Dickens can be pretty tragic. 

Giggle Hour: After you've been up for over 24 hours, you kind of go into a mechanized daze. And then everything seems funny and you can't stop laughing. At least, I can't, and neither can any of my friends...


	72. Purple

Post-prom drabble! Anyone remember the "Passive Agressiva Queen" title for Addison back when Addek was more hopeful and before Mark came along? And **Bleu? **You're alive! I thought you'd disappeared from Addison-ville forever! I'm on the edge of my seat again for another wonderful oneshot.**  
**

* * *

**Purple**

Purple is a royal color. It's supposedly the color of the gods. Adele wears purple, sometimes, and Addison can't help but think that she deserves to.

After all, she knew about Richard long before Addison even began to figure out this.

Maybe she should wear purple. Mr. A deserves to be ratted out.

Addison glares at the offending pair of panties on the bulletin board, and wonders if it's passive-aggressive enough.

* * *

Reference: Mr. A is the cheating, conniving bastard of a husband in _The Color Purple_. He is Not A Cool Guy, and right then, neither was Derek. 


	73. If

I'm watching "My Favorite Mistake" right now. Mr. Torres is the man. And if Taye Diggs doesn't show up in another 15 minutes, I will die. DIE. IMDB lied to me!

* * *

**If**

Kipling once wrote a poem called "If." She had read it in eighth grade, and thought it was a glorified way of saying "be perfect and the world will love you."

So. If she can make it through today, if she can do a surgery, if she doesn't snap at Derek, if she doesn't jump Mark.

If she doesn't stab Meredith. If she can get into bed sober.

Maybe someone will love her.

* * *

Reference: Rudyard Kipling's "If" is a bit high-minded when it comes to the whole "coming of age thing." Addison's interpretation was a bit off, but then, we know that her abilities in literature weren't exactly phenomenal. 


	74. Fall

Mm, yay happy reviews! I'm immensely cheered, especially after Taye's no-show last night...**  
**

* * *

**Fall**

Fall is her favorite season, because it's three months out of the year that the world changes color on its own.

As horribly superficial as it is, that's her favorite part about it.

Sure, there are other things. Derek proposed in the fall. She began her residency in the fall. Mark almost got married in the fall, once. It's a cornucopia of love.

But, really, it's about walking down the street, and knowing that these trees are alive, too.

* * *

Reference: Uuuummmmm...Oh God, I didn't do one! Agh! I really wanted to do a Bambi one, but it just felt too pushed when I put it in. So...

Just imagine Mark almost getting married.


	75. Choices

Does anyone know what was up with yesterday? "We are experiencing unexpected heavy traffic" or something. Bleh. As for #74, "Fall": I really just couldn't pass up an opportunity to see Mark almost married. HAH.

Anyway. Set early Season 3, I think.

**

* * *

**

**Choices**

"O' Malley, this would be a good time for you to make a choice."

"Oh, I'm—I'm sorry, Dr. Montgomery, I was just. Well, there's this thing. Well, not really a thing, it's just that. Well, I mean, you don't need to know about it, I was. I have problems."

"A regular Hamlet, you are."

"Many, many problems, and one of them is talking about my other problems with attendings who don't want to hear them."

"Mmhmm. Well, as long as you're going to stand there with your problems, I would suggest taking the pie. Their cheesecake is bad."

* * *

Reference: Bleu is gonna love me. _Hamlet_, the play by William Shakespeare, is just about as depressing as you can get. It's quite genius, there's incest, and murder and artifice, and everyone goes mad by the end.


	76. Christmas

Less Addisoncentric, more Maddek friendship. Because hey, they sounded like fun before Seattle came along.

**

* * *

**

Christmas

"'Twas the night," she says dryly. She's curled up next to Derek, throwing popcorn at the fireplace.

"Before Christmas," Derek continues.

"When all through the house."

"Not a creature was stirring."

"Not even a..." The pair wait a few seconds, before Addison leans forward and slaps Mark's head.

"A mouse," he says, irritated. "Every year. What kind of weird mind games are you trying to play?"

* * *

Reference: 'Twas the Night is a poem by Clement Clarke Moore, which basically established the names of Santa's reindeer. Why Addison and Derek make Mark say "a mouse" every year, I don't know, but it sounds like a silly tradition that they would indulge in.


	77. Spirit

College Mark-Erin observation of Addison-Derek. If I really examine her, I'd say that Erin is half in love with Mark, but then she'll stab me with a steak knife. So...infer what you will.

* * *

**Spirit**

Probably one of the certainties in life, besides death and taxes, is that any happy couple will, in due course, try to play matchmaker with their best friends.

So Addison and Derek, in the spirit of Naomi, are the sole culprits behind this situation:

Mark slouches salaciously in his seat, looking across the table at Erin.

"Can't you just say I have a latex fetish?" she asks.

"I could."

"It's _so_ Addison and Derek of them. We were friends back when they wanted to stab each other, but did they notice?"

"Probably not. But, since we're here..." He raises his eyebrows suggestively.

She rolls her eyes. "It's practically a rite of passage now, isn't it?"

"It's the spirit of the thing, Erin."

* * *

Reference: Naomi, the original matchmaker of the Bible. The latex fetish is a throwback to my other story, "Through Glass," in which Mark mentions that Addison and Derek tried to set him up with a woman who had a latex fetish. The rite of passage thing is something Derek's sister, Nancy says about sleeping with Mark. 


	78. Light

Post divorce, pre wedding ring gesture.**  
**

* * *

**Light**

Florescent lights are everywhere. Even if they're off, she can feel their harsh glares judging her. Moby's white glow, only revealing the truth, the light of God, other symbolic things...

Callie walks into the on-call room, no longer allowed to go to her hospital apartment.

"Dr. Shepherd?" Addison lifts up her head and grimaces.

"It's just Montgomery now."

"Oh. Dr. Montgomery?"

"Yes, Dr. Torres?"

"Are...you okay?"

She sighs. "Yeah. Sure." Callie moves her hand. "Don't turn on the lights."

* * *

Reference: My sophomore English teacher loved nothing more than to point out that Herman Melville's _Moby Dick_ symbolized truth and purity. Every. Single. Day. We were reading the book. Which was a pretty good book, but not when really obvious symbolism gets brought up every class, like we didn't know it by then... 


	79. What?

Fluffy addek humor, because I wanted to backstory something here...**  
**

* * *

**What?**

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You've been looking at me all day. What?"

"Is it okay to just look at my girlfriend at work?"

"Not when you look like a rabid dog."

"Oh, that's nice. How do you know what a rabid dog looks like?"

"I've seen you, haven't I?"

"Uh huh. You're insane, you know that?"

"Kesey would've had a field day."

"What if I wore blue? Does blue make me look like a rabid dog, or is it just the red shirt?"

"What?"

"The red shirt."

"It looks fine."

"Yeah, but people get concussions and say they're fine."

"Derek, do you have a concussion?"

"No."

"Would you like one?"

* * *

Reference: Kesey wrote _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_. Crazy people are his thing. It's a pretty good book.

I backstoried Derek's thing about his red shirt (remember season 1 when he was still going after Meredith?)


	80. Square

Very quick re-write, which I like a lot better. Set during the Maddison Baby timeframe (not the drama, just the baby)**  
**

* * *

**Square**

Square peg. Round hole.

Blue, square peg. Yellow, round hole.

No hammer.

Addison looks tiredly at the old toy, films of dust still undisturbed where her fingers didn't brush it.

It's hard to fathom that Savannah has something like this in her attic, but then, some people keep _Huckleberry Finn_ in their attics.

She thinks about that Yankee onesie. Doesn't wonder, just thinks, and it appears jarred in her mind.

She leaves the toy there, and goes back down to Savannah, ready to watch _Breakfast at Tiffany's_ and eat pancakes.

Some things just go together.

And some things don't.

* * *

Reference: _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ had two manuscripts. Mark Twain gave one of them to a friend of his, and it turned up, randomly, in the attic of a house in LA or somewhere equally strange that wasn't even properly urbanized when Mark Twain was around, much less populated with houses that had attics. There was this whole legal thing about royalties that was really boring, and in the end it got published. 


	81. White

** Bleu**, I know this is a little late, but YES, TAYE WAS supposed to be there. Hello, fellow fangirl! I almost killed myself with anticipation...

* * *

**  
White**

Her coat is white. Starched, clean, almost gloss-shiny white. She carefully slides two ink pens into the pocket, and loops a stethoscope around her neck.

She feels like she knows everything, she can do anything, wearing this coat, an unofficial badge of doctor-hood.

She stalks down the hall, an enigmatic smile around her lips as she prepares to face her first patient as a private practitioner.

She's the woman in white.

* * *

Reference: _The Woman in White_ is basically the first sensationalist mystery novel...ever, by Wilkie Collins. There was also a musical based on it, but the first thing that came to my head when I started writing this was Clue, the board game. But that got really silly half way through, so I ditched (Mark was threatening to stab Derek with the dagger). 


	82. Years

Hmmm...a personal response to the recent Addisex stuff? I guess. Back when I did write this, the Addisex was just getting a move on.

* * *

**Years**

Four years in high school, four years in college.

Four years in medical school, three more as a resident, and then three more as a fellow.

Two years of dating, eleven years of marriage.

One year of separation. Not even Marquez can go for this long.

It frustrates her that it's all come down to restraining herself from Alex Karev.

* * *

Reference: Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote _One Hundred Years of Solitude_. It only took him...like, five years or something to write it... 


	83. Independence

Addison-Mother-Erin time!**  
**

* * *

**Independence**

"Be sure to have fun," her mother puffs. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do. I'll call if anything comes up. Your dad says good luck, and he's sorry he can't be here. We love you."

And there's a moment, for a second, when her mother is about to say something, anything besides the trite words that everyone expects to hear.

"I love you, too, mom," Addison says. Her mother remains silent.

"Feel independent yet?" her roommate asks. Her name is Erin, and she inspects her fingernails too often.

Addison watches her mother go through the single dorm window. "No."

* * *

Reference: None specific, just every single growing up/college kid movie EVER MADE. I think Addison inherited her inability to say quite the right thing from her mother. She can say the perfect thing when it's stuff like little kids with really bad drawings or random announcements of elopement, but when she's uncomfortable...it all falls apart. 

Okay guys, **Big Announcement Time**: I am going to New York this week for my Spring Break (TOTALLY EXCITED), and I'm not too sure about my access to the internets. So I'll try to update if I can, but I can't guarantee that I will in between Avenue Q and Fifth Avenue and SoHo.


	84. He

Hello dears! I'm in Boston right now, in which I do have access to the internets. NYC was divine, and I was inspired (by the multiple taxis) to rewrite this one to incorporate taxis. Of course, I didn't get to see Wicked (One day, Julia Murney, one day), because hello, it's sold out two weeks in advance, but I did get to see Avenue Q (puppet sex!), which made me very happy.

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**He**

He's ridiculously taller than she is, which is strange, because she's tall, too.

He has brown hair, and he has a tendency to let it sprawl out across his face. It only looks good some of the time.

He always has a coffee cup in his hand, or at hand, or is waiting for one. She wonders if he sleeps any more; maybe he'll turn into Travis Bickle if he keeps it up.

He catches her looking, as she suddenly looks away, a bit guilty, but not really.

His name is Mark Sloan, and she hates him so lovely.

Wait, what?

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Reference: Travis Bickle, the (antagonistic?) protagonist of Martin Scorcese's _Taxi Driver_. He's a pretty intensely insane guy, who also never sleeps. 


	85. School

Woo! It's good to be missed, and it's good to _finally_ be able to upload again. Thank you, FFN! I don't know if you guys know her, but Aubri (also known as granddelusions on LJ) was a major contributor to this drabble, which popped into my head a long time ago when I saw her video homage to Addison, set to "Hollaback Girl." It's very funny. Youtube it if you can.**  
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School**

"What happened?"

"I...Mark, what are you talking about?"

"What happened to you? You're...subdued."

"I'm _what_?"

"_Subdued_."

"You're delusional."

"God, the rain here really softened you up, didn't it? What happened to New York Addison? What happened to Satan Addison? What happened to the woman who could verbally rip out your throat and laugh?"

"I'm a human being, Mark."

"What happened to Sarcastic Addison? Or Angry Addison? I liked Angry Addison, bring her back. Nothing brightens up a day more than Angry Angry Addison."

"Okay, I'm _not_ a video game."

"I could totally school you in that game."

"...Wanna bet?"

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Reference: Angry Angry Addison is a throwback to Hungry Hungry Hippos (hence the video game line). Yeah, I know. It wasn't some revealing piece about Addison in middle school or something, but come on. Hungry Hungry Hippos! 


	86. Shade

Yay for reviews! Boo for slightly unimaginative drabble coming up. Sorry guys!**  
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**Shade**

Contrary to her thoughts, the large oak tree offers very little shade. She can barely see the page, much less the words on it.

The sun beats down on her shoulders, and she wishes, just once, that her impulses would turn out the way she wants them to. It seems so fun with Amir and Hassan.

Someone casts a shadow over her book, and she yells at them for standing in her light.

Maybe shade is a bit overrated.

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Reference: Amir and Hassan were kids in _The Kite Runner _whose hang out was a pomegranate tree. 


	87. Food

The long-awaited Addison-Izzie convo! Yay! Set after...I can't remember the name of the episode, but the one where Addison gets drunk and calls Mark. **  
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**Food**

"You make good muffins."

"Huh? Oh. Thanks."

"Yeah. Thanks for...bringing them around. Last week. I needed them."

"Yeah? I made too many of them. I always do. Make lots of muffins, that is..."

"That's your comfort zone? Making food? Well. I've seen worse."

"Meredith gets really drunk and sleeps with men who have tattooed asses."

"Meredith and I have that in common."

"Does...Dr. Sloan have a tattoo on his ass?"

"...Joke, Stevens. That was a joke. Sometimes...old, bitter, on-their-way-to-divorce people make jokes."

"I'm sorry. It's just the way you said it."

"Yeah, that seems to be everyone's excuse."

"Do you...want to go get some food?"

"Is this comfort for me or you?"

"Both, I guess."

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Reference: I don't know if this counts, but in _Mean Girls_ (yes, the movie with Lindsay Lohan), Tina Fey's character, Ms. Norbury, says "I'm just here with my boyfriend." (points to a homeless dude. They actually believe her.) "I'm kidding. Sometimes...older people make jokes, too." Damian, a high school student, says "My Nana takes her wig off when she's drunk." Ms. Norbury: "Your Nana and I have that in common." 


	88. Writer's Choice: Smoke

Disappointing Addison's mom in order! And I'm about to watch last night's episode (I was at prom) so shhhhh...**  
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**Writer's Choice: Smoke**

Erin's hands remind her of her mother's. And while Erin doesn't smoke, Addison finds that occasionally, her fingers move over her lips as if she's holding a cigarette. Her mother does smoke.

Her mother smokes, elegantly, in fact, a black-and-white, Audrey Hepburn kind of action, that relies less on the tobacco and more on the appearance of a cigarette hanging loosely between her fingers. She smokes as though only to be social, as though she can quit, right there, and not need the nicotine tomorrow.

It's only after meeting Erin that Addison realizes that yes, her mother does need the nicotine tomorrow.

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Reference: Audrey Hepburn's smoking is probably most remembered in _Breakfast At Tiffany's_, which is based on the book by Truman Capote. Both are excellent. 


	89. Green

I know, I know, the FFN alert system is messed up AGAIN. If it's not fixed by number 90, I will hold off on updates until it is, because dammit, I like getting told when I update.**  
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**Green**

Grass is green. Mardi Gras is green and purple. Just add it to her hair and you have Christmas.

It's the color of half the hospital staff's scrubs. It's the color of the bottom light on the stoplights. The unnatural color of mold, or the best color of apple.

Green should be Addison's favorite color by now; she sees it everywhere.

(But then, green is also the color of two deadly sins. Greed and Envy.)

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Reference: Seven deadly sins, penned by Pope Gregory, and Shakespeare and his "green eyed monster of jealousy" 


	90. Death

So that no one will have to play (much) catch-up, I've put off updating for almost a week now, I think. BUT tonight's a new episode, so I've decided to post a new one every Thursday until 1: the alert system starts working again, or 2: Taye Diggs shows up to maybe whisk Addison away to LA. Which should be in May, so not that much longer!

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**Death**

She tells herself that, as a person of science, she is used to the idea of death.

(The forbidden fruit tastes like denial. She always eats too much and ends up with more knowledge than she wants.)

A long time ago, Addison had wished she was dead. Not long ago, she'd just wished the girl would grow up.

Admittedly, she still doesn't like her very much. Not hating is not the same as liking.

But right now?

Right now, Addison only wishes Meredith will live, because the other option seems impossible.

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Reference: Forbidden fruit is in the Bible. It's what tempted Eve and then Adam (ignore the thing about the snake...) Adam and Eve...I feel a Maddison ficlet coming up about that. Watch for it after the end of this. 


	91. Sunset

Heeeyyyy, the alert system picked back up! Yay! Anyway, in commemoration of LA GLAM Addison in the next episode (two hours of blissssss...and maybe some Taye), I'm going to try a few double updates to get number 100 up by next Friday. Which, sadly, will be the last of these drabbles, but then, they do close on a potential new chapter in our favorite character's life. Which means the beginning of a new chapter. And OO, I've got two fics that I definitely need to write after (during?) the next week, because I'm just so excited about the latest episode. And John Milton, but that's a different one.**

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**Sunset**

"Red sky at night, sailor's delight," Derek whispers, leaning over the ferryboat railing.

Addison smiles. "Tomorrow's going to be beautiful."

Derek smiles back. "Yeah. Shame we have to work."

"It is a shame." A thought occurs to him.

"You know what we should do?"

"Oh no," she groans.

"No, this is a good idea." No hope appears in her eyes. "Let's have lunch tomorrow. On top of the Empire State Building."

"Derek, do you realize how windy it'll get?"

"Always the naysayer, Addi. Come on. They have these cute little viewfinders somewhere on the way, I know it." Her head is buried in her hands, and she doesn't speak. "Please?"

A muffled voice replies, "Are you sure they have viewfinders?"

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Reference: Red sky at night, sailor's delight; red sky in morning, sailors take warning. Old saying, very accurate. And it sort of backstories that line in the first few episodes of Addison, when she meets Derek for lunch on top of...I know it's not the Space Needle, but some building. "It's not brown-bagging it on top of the Empire State Buidling, but it does have these cute little viewfinders." 


	92. Heart

Yay reviews and alerts! I'm so excited.

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**Heart**

The heart's easy. It's love, or hate, or just a simple beating organ, like the one Preston's exposing.

But that's not _heart_. _Heart_ is the choice to stay at the hospital, a decade after she's no longer required to, and watch a surgery that she will almost certainly never have to perform. Just to see a miracle happen.

_Heart_ is knowing that miracles don't happen, that almost all of it depends on sheer willpower and a strange talent with sharp, pointy objects.

_Heart_ is seeing the same thing every day and never getting bored.

She wonders why the Tin Man wanted one.

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Reference: The Tin Man! Wizard of Oz! 


	93. Writer's Choice: Mirrors

**Bleu**, of course I'd reference Audrey Hepburn and the movie and the novella. To not do so is heresy!

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**Writer's Choice: Mirrors**

The day she looks in a mirror and likes what she sees, the day the apocalypse comes. It's not that she doesn't think she's wildly attractive.

It's that mirrors lie. They twist light and reflect back every single detail that doesn't want to be seen. They reinforce the idea that beauty is skin deep, and that her skin is horrible.

Erin says that. "Beauty is only skin deep." But then she smirks and says, "As if anyone ever fell for a pair of attractive kidneys."

It's strange, then, on her wedding day, that she tolerates, and might even grudgingly like, her appearance in the mirror.

And the world hasn't ended yet.

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Reference; "Beauty is only skin deep" is a proverb first used, I think, by Sir Thomas Overbury. Erin's line came from _Maskerade_ by Terry Pratchett, and almost killed me when I first read it a few years ago. And this writer's choice marks the end of my Writer's Choices, which have now been: Rock, Paper, Scissors and Smoke and Mirrors. 


	94. Who?

Eck. My apologies in advance, because Weber is...well, he's not my strongest suit.**  
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**Who?**

"Who's that?"

"I don't know, but I think the Shepherds know her."

The same conversation bubbles throughout the entire hospital during the day, while Weber shakes his head in despair.

"Who are they talking about _now_?" he asks Addison.

"Nancy. Derek's sister."

"The OB/GYN?"

"Mmhmm." He whips off his glasses dramatically and rubs his eyes.

"Dammit, Addison, who keeps telling Derek's entire soap opera life to come to Seattle?" She smiles.

"Must be the rain."

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Reference: Well, there isn't really one, unless you count soap opera life. I just really wanted someone to whip off his glasses dramatically, and since no one else really wears glasses but Addison (and she needs to wear them forever, so there will be no whipping off), we have Weber.

And guys? Those alerts in your inbox are not lying to you. They ARE real alerts to new chapters, and since we're nearing number 100, please please please show some love and review? Please?


	95. Earth

Yay reviews! Thanks guys, you are definitely helping out in the last few of these...and Burke does wear glasses! I forgot about that! I actually like this one because it can apply anywhere...

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**Earth**

The Earth is big. It's mostly wet. It has an abundance of people.

But the six degree rule still applies in most cases.

Which is good; she likes being separated from everyone in the world by about six other people.

So why is there only one degree between her and Sloan?

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Reference: The Six Degrees of Separation rule? Totally applies in life.  



	96. Smell

A double update, because I'm trying to keep up with the Thursday finish line!**  
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**Smell**

It smells like French fries. Delicious, hot tasty French fries. If Alice in Wonderland was set in 2007, there would be no cake. It would just be a bag of French fries.

She dips a handful into her ketchup and chews. Mm, heart attack never tasted so good.

Her private artery clogging is interrupted by another, less pleasant smell. It reminds her of brand-less soap that should be used to remove paint.

She looks around to find the culprit.

Of course.

She knows he has had little time to shower in almost 24 hours, but Karev really needs to cut back on the deodorant.

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Reference: _Alice in Wonderland_, of course, by Lewis Carroll, although the original idea came form the book _Speak_, by Laurie Halse Anderson. Pretty good book, too. 


	97. Moon

Home stretch guys! And after this, I swear, a real Addison fic and the last chapter to The Game.**  
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**Moon**

A five-year-old Addison looks up at the moon. It's white and round, and she's duly unimpressed.

"There's a man in the moon," her father tells her. She scoffs.

"I don't see one."

"That's because he doesn't want to be seen. But when it's a full moon, he comes out and makes everyone act crazy."

She looks up at the perfectly circular shape, back at her slightly insane father, and decides that yes, this must be a full moon.

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Reference: The man in the moon was first mentioned in _Dante's Inferno. _It's also a very convoluted reference to _Fahrenheit 451 _in which Clarisse asks something about stars and says she's crazy. Or something. 


	98. Spring

In a little off shoot from earlier, another Addison who thinks everyone around her is crazy. And Erin! Erin makes a comeback!**  
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**Spring**

"Springtime for Hitler?"

"It's an amusing song."

"Erin, aren't you Jewish?"

"Mel Brooks was Jewish, too."

"Did you wash that pear before you bit into it?"

"Yes, mom. Addison, pretend for a second that you're not addicted to preservatives and appreciate that spring is here, with delicious pears to be plucked from trees."

"Erin, we have exams. They're kind of important."

"Well, if you insist. Here, take this. Pear, meet Addison. Addison meet pear. Now go have a lovely time, and don't get your book sticky."

"You're a little too into this spring thing."

"Winter for Poland and France!"

"I'm not French!"

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Reference: Come on, _The Producers?_ Directed by the one and only comedic genius Mel Brooks? Priceless. And a little sidenudge to Kate Walsh's French twin (well, she's like forty years older than Kate, but whatever), Catherine Deneuvu. 


	99. Storm

Whoo! Number 99! And angsty, too! Number...99. Wow. This is almost...I'll save the sappy stuff for tonight, but...gah!**

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**Storm**

There's always a calm before the storm. Probably because nature figures that there's enough confusion as it is, maybe she should give the poor things a break before tearing them up into little pieces.

Mother Nature must hate her. Her calm lasts two minutes before Derek begins gathering her clothes, in a horrible, unpredictable-yet-predictable pattern, Rhett Butler-stoic and just as cruel.

It isn't until after the storm, after he leaves, that she begins to regain some coherence in her thought.

And then she sits outside in the real storm, and cries until she's calm.

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Reference: Two actually, although the idiom "calm before the storm" shouldn't really count. Rhett Butler (Wow, did I only do two GWTW references?) is, of course, Margaret Mitchell's creation.


	100. Brown

100! Wow. 100. 100 Drabbles. And to think, I actually started this on a whim over Christmas break because I was so godawfully bored.I just...and I know this is going to sound corny...it feels like I've actually grown a lot, as a writer, tapping into the whole emotional state of Addison in as few words as possible. I mean, I'm still quirky and juvenilely amused as ever, but now I know I have the capacity to...god, feel isn't the right word, but to...emote. Which right now I'm going to abandon, and just say TAYE (walking a chihuahua? WTF?) and let you read.

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**Brown**

"It's more brown now."

"What is?"

"Your hair."

"Mark, did you seriously spend the last ten minutes contemplating the color status of my hair?"

"Looks good. It's not really brown, though, it's more auburn. Sexy. Not like Lucille Ball."

"Mark."

"...You've changed."

"Most people do."

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Reference: Lucille Ball, who not everyone saw was redheaded, but those who could see her in color could not miss the redness of her hair. Either way, Addison owns. Especially in this episode, even if it's only halfway over because Fun and Angst! Yay! 

Anyway. Thank you all for sticking with me this long and reviewing when I thought no one loved it, and showing me that there are still lots and lots of Addison fans despite what Shonda has just done to her. Hugs and candy go out to: FoxyWombat, Bleu, My Sharpie Is Green, Rainbow Stevie, Camelia Sinesis, and XAddisonShepherdX, for all your awesome reviews on almost every single drabble, which I cannot imagine doing, seeing as how I myself am an amazingly lazy reader. Love all, and I will be writing again, very, very soon!


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